Twitter and Communication in Revolutions

[William G Covington Jr PhD]

Social media such as Twitter and Facebook are playing prominent roles in countries where the political powers do not want free expression to occur. On TED.com there was a lecture talking about how a recent earthquake had been widely discussed on Twitter. Prior to this, in earlier times, it was commonplace for the Chinese governemnt to deny for extended periods that such a thing had taken place. Those days seem gone now that people can communicate with each other through social media. The questionable election in Iran is another example of people connecting with each other via media when the government had rather retain that power for itself. Interactive social media is opening up venues traditional linear media cannot.